#boerte

The Mists swirled about her, fluttering the silken veil and ornate headdress of this reality.

The card shifted into reality in her hand, and Boerte Khenbish sighed, and let reality change as she slid from one potential timeline to another less occupied.

From a Tyrian history dominated by Luxons to one bereft of nearly all life.

Time certainly to read a letter.

When the chronomancer and Mistweaver was finished, she folded her arms and let possibilities flow through her, tasting each.

He was afraid of her and he felt intense guilt.

It was almost funny.

Temujiin Ganbataar stared down at what he had done and felt as if the earth below his feet were alight. Or possibly melting. It was a decidedly unexpected, but not wholly unwelcome sensation. The baby was sleeping, from the look of it. As was her mother. Boerte was standing with her back to the scout, and washing her hands with characteristic and meticulous care. Her voice, using the dialect of New Krytan which the pair had grown up with, drifted quietly over. "I think that you owe me a story, big brother." "I.. yes. I do. Ancestors...." "Story." He couldn't seem to rip his eyes away from the newborn. Mouth and lips and tongue felt numb, really. "I was.. working up on.. on the defenses... and I.. I saw a pair.. and I.." "You looked down in case it was your ex lover who broke your heart whose fate I haven't decided on yes, yes, Temmy will you get ON with it. I hate wasting time. You know that." His sister had turned to regard him, her heart shaped, composed face a sunflower following him as if he were the sun, though few flowers offered the same caliber of predatory stare. "... right. Yes. Um. Well, it wasn't so I went back to work and when I looked down again they were fighting. I winched out my glider, but by the time I landed her assailant was gone and her sister was healing the worst knife wounds. Shard wounds. It was a crystal apparently. Or something. Stab, not slash. I brought her to the infirmary and.." "Ah. And she went into labour. So she'd hidden it with a mesmeric veil? That's very clever of her. I wonder if it affected the fetus.." Boerte's black eyes flicked over to the newborn with the same inquisitive look that she got before something got dissected. Temujiin reached to seize her shoulders and step her away from the sleeping mother and child, and interpose himself between his ruthless sibling and the child he'd helped deliver. "I suppose that she had. I hadn't even guessed until she started squirming and her belly became more.. real? That's when I panicked and used your tracking hailer." "Convenient device. You made a good thing there, since you may not know it, but it seems to bypass time too.." "Anyway, Boerte, I did the preparation, which I won't lie, was something else." "Had you ever even seen a woman nude below the waist, Temmy?" "Frankly? No." "You did well. My knowledge of anatomy is thankfully better than yours or it might have been problematic. Though I'm glad that you had some of your alchemical mixtures on hand. Those slippery mixtures proved efficacious." "They did? I was rubbing her shoulders and getting my hands crushed by that point. You did the real work." "Yes, I did. But yes, your substances prevented her tearing.  She'd lost a great deal of blood. It would have gone poorly had she lost more. I think the baby was about a month early, though I'm not.. really sure. I gave it a few weeks of extra time I'd been playing with, so -" "Her, Boerte." "What? Oh. The infant's gender. You're adorable, Temmy. Her. I gave her a few weeks of extra time, so I think she'll live.." "She'll live. I'll make sure of it." Both Luxons looked up as a new face entered the birthing room, blinking at the soft hum of Temujiin's new medical turret where he'd built it into the wall. He'd brought Luxelen to this room in particular because of the soothing mist he knew was omnipresent. "Nice device. Where's my sister." Another Larkspur sibling. Boerte, face as legible as a statue, gestured to the bed and its pair of occupants, one cradled tenderly upon the breast of the other. Temujiin, unlike his sister, found himself grinning almost proudly as he turned to make introductions between aunt and niece.

Boerte - Gobi